Chapter Text
Morning did not come with the sunrise. The sky merely grew less dark, and the grey dawn brought no warmth, only turned the night's blackness into a damp, clinging twilight. A cold rain had been falling for six days. Fine, persistent, insidious. It seeped through clothing and trickled down collars. The deck had grown slippery as ice.
With dawn came the fog. First a thin haze, then the world drowned in a thick white miasma, viscous, impenetrable, almost tangible. Visibility was limited to the ship's rails, and even Hakoda did not dare give the vessel full speed.
Things were going badly. They were making their way out of the warm waters near the Fire Nation border, evading pursuit, and had lost the rest of the fleet in the fog. There was nothing for it but to follow their plotted route and hope the other ships did the same. The world seemed to have erased itself; the only remaining scrap of reality was their deck, a dozen wet figures, and the endless, muffled slap of waves against the hull.
If he didn't know they were still alive, he might have thought they had wandered into the spirit world.
Rain drummed dully against the stretched canvas, and even that sound was swallowed by the fog. Somewhere below, bulkheads creaked plaintively, as if the ship were as alive and weary as the crew.
"Slow her down," Hakoda said without turning to the helmsman. "Last thing we need is to crash into something."
"We're barely crawling as it is," old Naruk replied. "If we slow down any more, the current will sweep us toward the Black Cliffs."
"Better the Black Cliffs than the bottom."
Naruk grunted but didn't argue. He knew — if the chief had made a decision, not even prayers could change his mind.
Hakoda stood at the gunwale, arms crossed, staring into the milky emptiness ahead. His sealskin parka had long since soaked through. Water streamed down his hair and dripped from his brows, but he didn't go below. Down there it was stuffy, damp, smelling of sweat and sour fish. And down there, you couldn't see the sky.
You couldn't see it on deck either, but at least here you could breathe. Dampness, salt, and the creeping cold that woke him better than any brew.
The smell of wet wood, soaked hides, and the ocean tickled his nostrils. Hakoda closed his eyes for a moment, trying to sense the direction, but the wind was silent.
He exhaled and opened his eyes.
All around was only white silence.
"Getting jumpy, Hakoda," the navigator chuckled, approaching with a mug of something hot. "Any hotter and you'll ignite."
"Leave that to the ashmakers, Ranok," Hakoda shot back with a frown.
"You'll catch a cold and then who'll give orders?"
Hakoda took the mug but didn't drink. Just warmed his stiff hands.
"Any word from the fleet?" he asked.
"No. The fog drowns out the drums, and signal fires can't be seen from one end of the ship to the other. We'll try again when we're out."
Hakoda raised an eyebrow.
"And when will that be?"
Ranok shrugged.
"When the fog lifts. Or when we crash into shore. Whichever comes first."
Hakoda finally drank. Scalding herbal brew — from the last of the dried Southern berries. Bato's doing, surely. Ranok wouldn't have given them up otherwise. Warmth spread down his throat, leaving a bitter aftertaste on his tongue. The taste of home. The taste he feared forgetting.
"How much supplies are left?" he asked without looking at Ranok. "How long will they last?"
A pause. Heavy, long.
"Ten days if we ration. Seven if we have no luck fishing."
"And if we stretch them?"
"Then people start getting sick. The sick at sea — those are the dead."
Hakoda nodded. He knew the answers himself. He'd just hoped Ranok might arrive at different numbers than the ones Hakoda had already calculated.
Ten days. The nearest Earth Kingdom port — fourteen days at full speed in good weather. But in this fog, at not even half speed, against the current… Twenty. Maybe twenty-five. They wouldn't make it. They already wouldn't make it.
Somewhere out west sailed the main force — three ships that should have met them at the cape a week ago. No word. No fleet. Only fog, rain, and slowly dwindling barrels of flour.
"Turn northeast," Hakoda said suddenly.
anok stared at him.
"Have you lost your mind? Northeast is Fire Nation waters!"
"I know."
"We'll be killed!"
"We'll be killed if we don't find supplies. Off the Fire Nation coast are shipping routes. Cargo vessels. Small, without heavy escort. We take one, fast, and disappear back into the fog."
"That's madness. Hakoda, by the time we reach the trade routes, we'll be out of the fog, we can contact the fleet..."
"It's survival," Hakoda cut in.
Ranok opened his mouth to argue. Hakoda turned to the helmsman. But neither of them got the chance.
Two long, drawn-out blasts cut through the dead silence. Startled, Hakoda grabbed the railing and went rigid. Only enemy steam vessels sounded like that.
A shout came from the crow's nest:
"Port side! A silhouette! Large! Two long blasts!" The lookout's voice held bewilderment. "They've spotted us!"
Two long blasts. A vessel dead in the water.
Hakoda lunged to the side, gripping the wet line. The fog swayed like a curtain, and in its white depths, mere dozens of meters away, outlines slowly emerged.
A ship.
A large ship.
Metal.
With a predatory, elongated bow and three masts that were visible even through the haze.
The Fire Nation.
Hakoda gripped the railing tighter, his eyes boring into the fog. The silhouette no longer blurred — the metal hull, dull with rain, grew sharper by the moment. No more than ten meters between them. If they'd been going faster, a collision would have been unavoidable.
"What's a Fire Nation ship doing in these waters? Have we strayed so far off course?" Ranok whispered, his voice carrying the same confusion. But Hakoda was troubled by something else entirely.
Why had they warned them?
An enemy who spots you first in the fog doesn't blast across the ocean. He attacks. But this ship sat motionless, sounding signals so that the small Southern Water Tribe vessel wouldn't crash into it.
This was wrong. It shattered everything Hakoda knew about the Fire Nation.
Bato emerged from the fog, scrambling up the ladder, and froze beside him, fists clenched tight, his eyes fixed on the metal monstrosity.
"They know exactly who we are," he said. "It's a trap."
"Stay sharp," Hakoda nodded, agreeing with his right hand before giving orders. "Harpoons to the port side. Keep the gangplanks ready. I want to understand what's happening."
The crew moved silently, without shouts. The rain muffled their footsteps, and his sailors looked like nothing so much as wild shadows haunting children's nightmares in the dark of the frozen wastes.
"I want to speak with them," he said.
Bato started immediately.
"Koda, no," Bato stepped closer, putting a hand on his shoulder, but Hakoda shook it off. "You don't know who's there. It's a trap."
"And if it isn't? We sail past and then regret never learning why a warship is drifting dead in the water with a white flag where they have no enemies but us?"
Hakoda climbed onto the gunwale, wrapping a length of hanging line around his fist. Every pair of eyes on their ship was fixed on the enemy deck, where still not a soul appeared. Tied hastily to the metal mast was something white — a towel or a sheet — flapping weakly in the wind.
A white flag.
Idiotic. Almost insulting.
The crew held still. No one. Not a sound.
The rope creaked in Hakoda's grip.
No one heard footsteps on metal. Through the fog, they didn't at first see the appearance of the silent observer. A portly old man seemed a ghost — as grey, as dead, as unreal as his ship. But the threat was real. And the white flag was real.
The only question left was which one was real.
The old man inclined his head almost peaceably and laid his hands on the gunwale. Their eyes met, and Hakoda felt Bato readying his bone spear at his back.
There wasn't a single emotion in the old man's eyes that Hakoda could read.
"What does he want?" Ranok hissed under his breath. "I say we board and take the ship."
"He's not alone," Hakoda replied quietly. "Probably a hold full of firebenders."
"Then why is he the only one here?"
The rain beat harder. Hakoda was about to shout when the old man spoke. Quietly, but clearly — the words reached him as if he were standing right there. Too well-trained for a simple old man.
"Chief Hakoda of the Southern Water Tribe. I have heard of your exploits in recent years." He spoke courteously, without malice, without mockery. Calmly. Slightly hoarse. Hakoda didn't know what to expect. "Sail past. You will not find enemies in us today."
Hakoda didn't flinch. He'd heard flattery before, more than once. Especially from those who later tried to kill him.
"Give your name," the chief demanded, brushing empty diplomacy aside. "Why did you stop us? Trying to catch us off guard?"
The old man didn't change expression. His spine had been perfectly straight already. He merely clasped his hands behind his back.
"I am General Iroh, the Dragon of the West."
The name struck like thunder in the stillness. Bato cursed foully behind him.
"On board we have a wounded one. We have no need for senseless battle."
Hakoda had heard that name. He understood why the crew pressed lower against the deck at once, ready to spring to attack at any moment. The Dragon of the West, who had burned cities and sunk fleets. The general who had failed at the walls of Ba Sing Se.
An old man standing in the rain with empty hands, asking not to fight.
Hakoda exhaled slowly, shifting his weight to his standing leg.
"And I'm supposed to take your word for it?" He raised a skeptical eyebrow. "That you won't strike us from behind the moment we sail past? Just because you have a wounded soldier aboard?"
"Chief Hakoda," the general's voice carried a universal weariness, and he leaned forward to be heard. "This is not a soldier. This is a child."
This Hakoda had not expected.
He had prepared himself for threats and demands, for lies, even for attempts to win him over, deceive him, and then kill him. But not this.
A child.
Hakoda stopped paying attention to his crew.
The realization struck deep beneath his ribs — painful, right where Hakoda hid from everyone. The images that kept him from sleeping soundly at night. Little Katara, who finds the strength to smile even when surrounded by hunger and loneliness. Sokka, trying to be a man but still crawling into his father's bed after nightmares. A boy who looked so like his mother.
Hakoda's face flickered. A brief, treacherous tremor he couldn't stop. Surprise and worry following. He too was a father. He too knew that relentless ache in his heart — the ache for his own children. And spirits damn him if he didn't see it now on Iroh's face.
He pulled himself together almost immediately, clenching his jaw and straightening his back. But that second did not go unnoticed.
He saw that Iroh had noticed.
Something flickered in the old man's eyes amidst the dull exhaustion. Quick and sharp. Hakoda had seen that expression more than once — caught it in Bato's eyes when a decision had already ripened but the words had not yet come.
Rain drummed on the deck. In the heavy silence, each drop seemed deafening. Iroh was silent too long for a mere pause. He watched Hakoda. And Hakoda didn't like the feeling.
As if he'd been read like an old navigation chart.
A shiver of tension ran through his body. The gunwale creaked beneath his feet.
"Chief Hakoda," something had changed in the old general's voice. He was not pleading anymore, no. Only certainty remained. "Perhaps you should see this with your own eyes."
Iroh stepped aside from the railing, inviting him aboard. And finally, the Southern fleet's crew erupted in outrage.
Ranok was the first to break. He didn't attack only because he was too stunned to move.
"Like hell!" His spear struck the deck with enough force to crack the shaft. "Hand over our chief to you? You think we're fools?"
Someone behind him struck the mast with a fist. Hakoda heard them all but didn't listen. He watched the old man standing on the deck. Separating them was not just the gap between two hulls—a century of war lay between them. But the old man kept his hands behind his back. Firebenders don't need swords or spears. Hiding your hands was the same as surrendering without a fight. As a chief, Hakoda didn't believe in such naivety.
But inside him, something more important was tearing apart.
Risk his own people or risk an innocent life. If everything the Dragon of the West had said was true, they might avoid bloodshed. Only once before had Hakoda faced such a difficult decision, and he still lived with it, far from home and his children. Now the crew was his only family in the middle of the ocean, and they were all on the edge.
But…
He looked at Bato. His friend stood with a twisted face and shook his head almost imperceptibly.
Ranok was ready to attack.
And the old general saw his hesitation but did not relent.
"I know this is not an easy decision," Iroh's voice grew quieter but no less strong. He spoke as commanders speak—men accustomed to winning battles even when losing the war. "So I propose a deal."
Hakoda tensed.
"A raid is being assembled against the South Pole," Iroh said.
Hakoda froze, his grip on the railing going slack. Not only him. Everyone present fell silent. Each had left home and family behind.
"I know the route, the dates, the number of ships and soldiers. I will give you that information, and you can prepare. Three ships, in three weeks. You can fight them off — especially in the ice, where you have the advantage."
In the chief's head, invisible abacus beads clicked.
A raid. Three weeks.
"But why?" Hakoda didn't notice how a near-growl tore from his throat. He swayed on the narrow gunwale, almost falling forward, but caught himself. This was a wound that would never heal. "Your army killed the last waterbender! There's no reason for them to return to our lands!"
Hakoda could no longer feel his own heartbeat. His daughter was in danger.
General Iroh merely shook his head.
"All this time, they have been searching for one person. And they won't rest until they find him. Even if he is not at the South Pole. Once, it was his home."
"What does that mean?"
"Only that the Fire Nation will never leave the Southern Water Tribe in peace. As long as the war continues."
Something in the general's voice made Hakoda measure him with another long look, trying to discern his motives. Too much had suddenly fallen onto the scales for him to remain indifferent. He clenched and unclenched his fists. Both ships sank into a heavy, tangible silence.
Everyone in his fleet had left home for one purpose — to protect what was dear to them. And now their very mission was threatened because danger was returning to their native shores.
They would not reach the South Pole in time without supplies from the Earth Kingdom. They would either die on the way, or their tribe would perish.
"And what do you propose?" Hakoda was no fool, and he knew how to negotiate when negotiations were offered. He didn't believe that a man who had indirectly opposed the war — while being a general of the enemy army—had no plan.
Iroh gestured toward his ship.
"Aboard my vessel are supplies. Flour, fresh water, dried meat, medicine. Everything that remains." He paused, letting the thought settle, then offered a choice. "You take it all. Even if you refuse to take the boy."
The boy.
Hakoda closed his eyes. He was offering to take the child with him.
They had ten days of supplies left—with another mouth, even less. To the South Pole—twenty days if they caught a favourable current. To the Earth Kingdom—fourteen days at best. But then they would leave their homes to be ravaged by raiders.
They wouldn't make it.
Iroh was offering him an easy way out. Take the supplies, the information, and leave. Leave the boy. Tell himself this wasn't his war, not his child, not his responsibility. Hakoda knew that path. It was simpler. More honest to his crew. Safer for everyone. But Hakoda understood that he will never rid himself of the thought — what if? — couldn't stop picturing his children's faces. He knew that if he walked away now, he would regret it for the rest of his life. He couldn't explain it. Couldn't justify it. But he knew — he could never forgive himself for not even trying.
Iroh was offering them not just information or hope. He was offering them a chance to save lives. More than one.
And the currency of the exchange was a child's life.
A boy's.
Hakoda opened his eyes and looked at the general. At the white flag — a dirty rag flapping in the wind, wet and pathetic. At the empty deck where not a soul stood but one old man.
When had they reached the point where children's lives lay on the scales by their will?
His fists unclenched of their own accord.
Hakoda understood — the decision had already been made. For the most part, without his knowledge.
He jumped down from the gunwale. His boots struck the deck dully.
"Send over the gangplank," he ordered, nodding toward the Fire Nation ship.
"Have you lost your mind?!" Ranok stepped before him, eyes blazing.
"I'm going aboard alone."
"Koda, no!" Bato grabbed his clothing, fingers digging into the wet fur of his parka, pale as snow off their native shores. "It's a trap!"
"If it's a trap, I die. You turn the fleet around and head for the nearest port for supplies. That was the plan, and it remains the plan. If it's not — I decide whether the boy is worth the risk."
"And if they take you hostage?" Ranok blocked his path, arm outstretched.
"Then Bato becomes the next chief." Hakoda turned to his friend. "And your first order—sink this ship along with me. Understood?"
Bato clenched his teeth and looked at him with hurt, but still nodded.
Hakoda turned away. And with an irritation that had been building throughout the negotiations— dull, angry, almost childish in its helplessness—he ripped at his belt buckle.
He hated himself for hesitating so long. Hated the fog that had bound him hand and foot. Hated Iroh for cornering him not with threats but with circumstances. And most of all, he hated that the child on that ship was the enemy. Because in his world, children weren't divided into friend and foe. Children were just children. And this cursed, wrong reality — where he had to weigh one boy's life against the lives of his own tribe — turned him inside out.
He unbuckled his belt. Threw it on the deck. Then his sheath. His boomerang. Everything that could kill.
He remained in only his wet shirt, beneath which his heart pounded—too loud, too hard. He didn't even shiver from the cold.
"Watch the ship," he called without looking back. "I'll be back soon."
And he stepped onto the gangplank.
***
Until this moment, Hakoda had never before set foot on a metal ship, and his sensations did not match what he had imagined. He had expected to feel threat from every corner, the deck underfoot to feel unreliable, the environment itself to turn against him.
Instead, all of it was overshadowed by a deepening unease.
With every step deeper into the hold, the atmosphere grew more oppressive. The ship didn't sway on the waves. The crew was indeed here, but no one paid Hakoda attention for longer than a few seconds. Each was quietly occupied with their own tasks.
The air smelled distinctly of herbs and blood. Sour and sticky. A smell that only came from the worst wounds.
Putrid. The further they went into the belly of the metal beast, the worse the smell became.
Hakoda already knew he wouldn't like what he was about to see. And even more, he didn't understand why General Iroh needed this whole performance, trying to foist the boy on him at any cost.
The old man's steps stopped before a metal door, like everything else around. For a brief moment, he hesitated — which made Hakoda narrow his eyes.
"I trust you will show reason," the general began. "But please try not to frighten him. He has already endured so much. I hope I have not been mistaken about you, entrusting what is most precious."
Iroh pushed the door forward, but Hakoda did not hurry to follow.
The smell of herbs hit his nose with triple force — clearly they were doing everything possible to contain the infection. But Hakoda still felt nauseated by the stench. He swallowed nervously before stepping into the cabin's semidarkness.
The moment his eyes adjusted to the darkness was the first moment his gaze fell on the child. Hakoda inhaled deeply and noisily through clenched teeth, trying to contain his shock.
General Iroh hadn't lied.
Slowly, step by step, as if still making his way through fog, Hakoda approached the low bed, on legs that had suddenly turned to water.
"Tui and La…" escaped his lips before he even squatted down.
Before him lay a child who resembled a rag doll in the way he lay limply, as if lacking even the strength to curl into a ball, as his own children always did when sick. He breathed raggedly, covered in sweat.
But even that was not the worst part.
Beneath the thick layer of salve, beneath the dishevelled bandages, Hakoda glimpsed what made his mouth go dry. A burn. From his nose to his ear and further, to his hair. The wound was wet, small singed strands sticking right to the aggressively red, ruined skin that should not look like this on a living person.
The boy breathed rapidly, hoarsely, with a wheeze. His lips were cracked to the point of bleeding.
"What happened to him?" he asked, not taking his eyes away, and didn't recognize his own voice. "How could this happen?"
How could anyone allow this?
Such a terrible burn on a small child's face — Hakoda couldn't even imagine whether the muscles would ever recover. Not with a wound like this. Not to mention whether he would ever open his left eye again.
Tui and La. He looked about thirteen. No older than Sokka.
Hakoda had too many questions to focus on any single one.
He didn't know what to say.
Hakoda shifted his gaze to Iroh, demanding at least some explanation.
The old man stood by the door, hands clasped behind his back. In the semidarkness, his face seemed pale as old bone. He was looking at the boy.
"He was wounded in an Agni'Kai," Iroh exhaled heavily, his shoulders slumping. In an instant, he had aged several years.
A few seconds passed before Hakoda could process the words. As soon as the picture came together, something greater than irritation washed over him. Fury seized him.
"And now what?" he hissed. "He's become a burden? Is that why you're so eager to be rid of him?"
Hakoda, as both chief and father, rarely felt rage, but now he was swept away. He could feel poison gathering on his tongue with each second, and he didn't even try to stop it. How could anyone in their right mind challenge a child to a duel?
"Did he at least regain consciousness so you could tell him to his face that you're getting rid of him?"
His hands clenched into fists, glaring at the general from under his brows.
"My nephew will never be a burden to me," Iroh cut back, straightening. "What happened to him was dishonourable and cruel, an unprecedented spectacle. But never, never will Zuko be a burden to me."
Hakoda didn't know what to feel from what he heard and saw. The Dragon of the West was too evasive to speak directly.
None of this made things easier.
Quietly, almost at the edge of a whisper, Hakoda said:
"So you just stood and watched." That was all he could understand from Iroh's evasive answers. That General Iroh, a living legend in the flesh, stood and watched as his nephew was maimed in a grotesque tradition by some adult.
"Yes," the old man said, shaking his head before sinking heavily onto a low stool by the bed. "And it will haunt me for the rest of my days. I know this. But all I can do now is stop the usurper and put an end to my brother's rule."
The lump in his throat refused to go away. His nose stung from the smell of herbs and metal. Hakoda looked at Zuko again, but saw Sokka in him. Despair stirred in his chest. So. Ozai. What kind of monster did you have to be to do this? To take your own child and…
From how the burn ran, it seemed the Fire Lord had cradled his son's face in his palm, almost gently, before setting it aflame. Hakoda tried not to think about it. He already felt as though he'd been struck with a blunt object.
Iroh spoke again.
"I planned to hide him in Ba Sing Se, concealing from him the terms of his banishment," he said, gently brushing the hair from Zuko's forehead, careful not to touch the terrible wound, before continuing.
Some part of Hakoda, the father part, followed the movements of that foreign hand without blinking.
"But if I go with him, I cannot be in two places at once. And of course, I would choose Zuko. There is no one left in this world who could care for him sincerely except me."
Hakoda listened and didn't interrupt.
"On our ship, there is no healer. A week has passed, but Zuko has woken only a few times. He refuses food, barely let us give him water. The journey to the Earth Kingdom proved harder than we initially thought, and all the while Ozai grows stronger. If he is not stopped, this nightmare will never end."
"And so you chose me?" Hakoda smiled bitterly, but the smile came out crooked. "An enemy who hates everything about your nation."
"I chose a father," Iroh lifted his head to look at him. "I saw your face when I spoke of the child aboard. I know that expression. It belongs to a man who would not take his rage out on the defenceless."
Hakoda said nothing, his lips pressed into a thin line.
"And besides," the old general continued, "I chose a man who, throughout our conversation, never once stepped away from a sick child's bedside."
His eyes stung, and Hakoda stubbornly blinked away the sting. If evil had an incarnation on earth, he now stood inside it, placed in an impossible situation, with an impossible choice and an uncertain outcome.
Before him sat an old man who had lost the war but was trying to win at least one battle, for his nephew's life. And he was offering Hakoda not just a deal. He was offering a chance to save his village, his family, and perhaps even to end the war.
And once again, the currency was a child's life. One who had never even been a soldier.
Ranok's words, spoken less than an hour ago, surfaced against his will. Hakoda carefully crouched beside the mattress, looking at the boy — Zuko — with different eyes. The wound was a week old, but it was still wet and bleeding. Hakoda was no healer, but even he knew that was not good.
"The sick at sea—those are the dead."
Zuko's skin was hot to the touch.
"I'm not sure he'll survive the journey to the South Pole," Hakoda said without taking his eyes from the boy, and added quietly, almost to himself, "Or the journey to the Earth Kingdom either."
Iroh didn't answer. Only clenched his fists on his knees.
"He's strong," the old man finally said, quieter than the rustle of wind. "Stronger than he seems."
"Strength alone isn't enough here." Hakoda shook his head, unconsciously adjusting the blanket over the child's shoulders. "If the wound festers, or the fever doesn't break…"
A heavy, oppressive silence hung in the air. Again and again, Hakoda studied the ruined face, searching for any positive aspect in what he saw — and finding none. But if Iroh would give over the supplies, at least they had a healer on their ship. Someone who could try to save the boy. The prince. The son of the Fire Lord, the man responsible for his wife's death.
A child. Before him was a child. He felt ashamed for needing to remind himself of that, especially at such a moment.
Hakoda considered and found in himself neither the strength nor the desire for pettiness. None of that mattered.
"I don't know if he'll survive," he said at last, exhaling heavily through his mouth. "But at the South Pole, at least he'll have a chance. And I still can't promise anything."
"I ask for no promises," the old man shook his head, stroking his nephew's palm with his thumb, unable to let go. "A chance will be enough. Just don't abandon him. Please."
Hakoda sighed. He could not give a single promise. But he could at least try.
Iroh said nothing.
He bowed his head, respectfully, wearily, with that same sorrow Hakoda had noticed on the deck.
And beyond the metal wall, the rain still droned on.